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Gap between the EU’s normative commitments to socio-economic justice and the practical workings of its integration project -- Potential for strengthening the social EU by recourse to the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union – Charter normatively commits EU to a constitutionally conditioned Internal Market – Charter curbs property rights and entrepreneurial freedom specifically for the sake of social rights guarantees – Constructive response to legitimacy dilemmas emerging from cases such as Laval, Viking and AGET Iraklis – Reinstating socially embedded constitutionalism at EU levels as an alternative to relegating social integration to national levels

Tensions between the economic and the social dimensions of European integration are being perceived as increasing, and so is the potential for conflict between national and European levels of policy-making. Both are well illustrated by a highly controversial line of Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ) cases on industrial relations: Viking and Laval have become symbols for the continuing dominance of the economic over the social dimension of European integration and for an increasing tendency of the EU to diminish national autonomy. As one consequence, demands to protect Member States’ social policy choices from EU law pressures arise. For such demands to be tenable, isolation of national and EU policy-making and of economic and social dimensions of European integration would have to be possible. This is arguably not the case. Economic and social dimensions of integration will thus have to be reconciled across EU and national levels, if the EU and its Member States are to maintain the ability of enhancing social justice against the pulls of economic globalisation.

This book results from a ‘Multilateral Jean Monnet Research Group’ called ‘European Economic and Social Constitutionalism after the Treaty of Lisbon: an Interdisciplinary Perspective’, which took up its work in September 2008. The idea for the group originated in collaborations between Hildegard Schneider and Dagmar Schiek within the framework of the IUS COMMUNE research school, where both had attempted to establish a research focus ‘Economic and Social Constitutionalism’, as well as in the contacts between Ulrike Liebert and Dagmar Schiek, who had been working at neighbouring universities for quite a while, often noticing that they had some overlap in research interests, but not succeeding in teaming up for research.

This introduction contextualises the hypothesis of the two-year research project on which this book is based, and explains how the single chapters relate to this hypothesis. The reader will see that we are opening a new debate with new questions, which still await definite answers.

European studies frequently regard the economic and social dimensions of EU integration as diametrically opposed, maintaining that this state of affairs is beyond change. This edited collection challenges this perceived wisdom, focusing on the post-Lisbon constitutional landscape. Taking the multi-layered polity that is Europe today as its central organising theme, it examines how the social and the economic might be reconciled under the Union's different forms of governance. The collection has a clear structure, opening with a theoretical appraisal of its theme, before considering three specific policy fields: migration policy and civic integration, company law and corporate social responsibility and the role of third sector providers in public healthcare. It concludes with three case studies in these fields, illustrating how the argument can be practically applied. Insightful and topical, with a unique interdisciplinary perspective, this is an important contribution to European Union law after the Lisbon Treaty.

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